BCE Inc. has petitioned the federal cabinet to tell broadcast regulators to re-evaluate the controversial $3.38-billion offer, which the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission rejected on Oct. 18.

“At this point, there is an appeal possible according to the law but we don’t have any intention to intervene,” the minister said following an address an industry conference here.

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“The CRTC has its own jurisdiction, they tabled their decision and we acknowledge it’s within their jurisdiction so there’s no point in the government to intervene.”

A spokesman for Bell said the company has not heard back from the government yet and considers its application as still being actively reviewed.

While the petition remains open the blunt comments appear to all but rule out a successful merger of Astral with Bell Media, the entertainment unit for BCE, the country’s largest telecommunications and media company.

BCE filed a petition with government officials last week, days after the bid was killed by regulators who determined a combined Bell-Astral would hold too much sway over the market place. Mr. Paradis and other members of cabinet had initially indicated that they would not intervene in the decision.

Yet Mr. Paradis’ remarks shed the first insight into cabinet’s thinking on the matter since BCE filed its petition – and it appears the last.

BCE chief executive George Cope has publicly fumed about the CRTC refusal, saying the commission swayed from its own rulebook on assessing metrics such as total TV audience share in order to kill the bid.

“People re-jigged the numbers,” Mr. Cope said in an interview earlier this month. “We had the rules changed in front of us.”